Sunday, November 04, 2007

A Rundown of Recent Forecasts

Here's a rundown on how recent long-range forecasts based on planetary cycles played out.

A powerful low-pressure system was forecast for the Pacific Northwest between Nov 1-3. The Accuweather map at right shows the arrival of a low on the 4th--a bit later than anticipated.

On the 3rd, Accuweather reported:

A cold front extending from an area of low pressure in Canada will bring a chilly rain to Washington and snow to parts of the Prairies in Canada. Cold air will spill down into the region behind the front as a result of an area of high pressure over British Columbia. This system will move eastward and strengthen to bring even colder air to the East coast.

November 1st through the 3rd was also to bring a cold front triggering storms over the Northeast U.S. The 3rd saw the arrival of Noel over the region with winds of 40 to 60 mph.

The Weather Alternative also called for possible tropical storm or hurricane formation between 35 and 43 west longitude. Between the 2nd and 3rd a tropical wave was reported over the above coordinates by the National Weather Service.

...TROPICAL WAVES...TROPICAL WAVE IS ALONG 33W S OF 16N MOVING W NEAR 10 KT. BROAD AREA OF SMALL CLUSTERS OF SCATTERED MODERATE/ISOLATED STRONG CONVECTION COVERS THE AREA FROM 3N-15N BETWEEN 30W-37W.

Give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters, the theory goes, and they will eventually produce the works of Shakespeare.

Give six monkeys one computer for a month, and they will make a mess. Researchers at Plymouth University in England reported that primates left alone with a computer attacked the machine and failed to produce a single word.

"They pressed a lot of S's," researcher Mike Phillips said. "Obviously, English isn't their first language."

At first, said Phillips, "the lead male got a stone and started bashing the hell out of the computer. Another thing they were interested in was in defecating and urinating all over the keyboard."

The notion that monkeys typing at random will eventually produce literature is often attributed to Thomas Huxley, a 19th-century scientist who supported Charles Darwin's theories of evolution.